


Orbs

by InkFlavored



Series: Zenyatta Appreciation Week 2018 [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Making up shit about Omnics, making up shit about zenyattas orbs, this is an excuse to explain how his orbs work thats literally it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 17:25:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14025081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkFlavored/pseuds/InkFlavored
Summary: Zenyatta Appreciation Week (Day 2: Nature/Technology)There are mysteries all around us, everyday. Fortunately, many of them can be explained.





	Orbs

**Author's Note:**

> yaaaaay day 2! i've actually been sitting on this piece for months, unable to finish it b/c i didn't have a motivation. this week has given me the excuse!

A bright yellow sun shone through the tops of the trees, painting the forest floor with sunlight and shadow, dancing pictures of light and dark chasing each other in and endless – and fruitless – game. Birds sang merrily, squirrels chirruped in the trees, the occasional fox or rabbit would scurry under large roots and under rocks, leaping away into the trees at the sight of two outsiders in their midst. Two metallic figures sitting, still as stone, under the comforting canopy of an oak tree’s leaves.

One with white plates like armor and brown muscle-like material, accented with green as the grass he sat upon. Despite being deep in meditation, his posture held the likeness of a solider: sharp and alert at all times. The other, floating above the ground, was a shining silver and gold, contrasting with the mottled dirty yellow cloth he wore, small bright red wires and sash of reddish-brown cloth, sky blue lights on a metal-gray head. Around him, nine fist-sized orbs circled, each chiming like a bell, harmonizing with the previous noise.

Both had been sitting for hours, as per their routine. It was not often they found such a nice place to meditate – travels in unfamiliar lands often lead to unfortunate places – and they had snatched up the opportunity with relish. It was, curiously, one of the moments that they cherished most with each other – sitting still and breathing and melting into serenity. A conversation that required no words, no gestures, nothing traditional. The sound of peace was different for everyone, and the pair found peace in listening to it.

The chiming of the floating orbs slowly, slowly, faded into the air like a whisper on the wind until they silenced altogether. Tekhartha Zenyatta, the omnic that they had circled, roused himself from meditation, letting loose a quiet sigh, or the robotic equivalent of such a thing. The orbs spun quickly, their circle growing wider, and then contracting to positions themselves around the omnic’s neck like giant beads of a necklace, rotating slowly about themselves in all different directions. Organized chaos. Or, at least, that’s what Zenyatta called it, in jest, of course.

Zenyatta flexed and clenched his metal fingers, refocusing on himself – long bouts of meditation often required a return to his mind, even after having practiced it for most of his life. It had gotten easier, of course, but over the years there still lingered that part of his soul, always a small piece caught in the endlessness of tranquility, that needed coaxing back down. Often this method of “coaxing” included simply being aware of himself, of what was directly in front of him, and – most effectively – conversation. However, that last one might have to wait.

Zenyatta turned his head to his student, the cyborg, he found, still meditating. Genji was stubborn in all things, and the years had not changed him. It took him a long time (a _very_ long time) to even want to consider meditation as a part of his healing process, and an even longer time to learn it. Though, once learned, Genji had taken tranquility in a chokehold, determined to wring every last drop of peace that he could from it. Despite his student’s rather aggressive approach to recovery, Zenyatta could not blame Genji for latching on so tightly to any form of hope he could possibly grasp. The cyborg’s life had been mildly tumultuous at best and violently chaotic at worst. He deserved his peace, possibly more than anyone Zenyatta had ever met. And though he had made extraordinary progress compared to when Zenyatta had first met him, total recovery for Genji was going to take a bit longer. Likely more than a bit. But Zenyatta was prepared to help him every step of the way.

For now, he decided, he would let his student awaken at his own pace. If they had been expected somewhere (rarely, but it happened), Zenyatta would not have hesitated to rouse Genji on his own. But Zenyatta’s chronometer read that it was only early afternoon – they had plenty of time to spare.

While he waited, Zenyatta plucked an orb from his neck and idly spun it between his hands. It responded without him touching it, naturally, so his hands were not necessarily required for the activity, but he enjoyed how it looked. Much like a magician, he mused.

As the first orb spun, Zenyatta sent another to join it, flattening his hands and spinning the orbs faster. As the two orbs spun in rapid circles, the omnic sent third, and it joined the fray seamlessly. The orbs spun faster and faster and faster, blurring with their speed, chasing each other between Zenyatta’s hands. He flicked his fingers, and ghosts of blue energy shot toward the sky, spinning and evaporating into the air. He did this over and over again, and on the fifth time, he sent the orbs after their energy. They flew into the sky, spinning in a tight circle, and then shooting out at Zenyatta’s beckoning.

The omnic felt his student stir at his side, and slowed the orbs into a slow, lazy circle.

“Having fun, Master?” Genji said. His smirk passed through the air, as it always did.

“Good afternoon to you, as well, Genji,” Zenyatta replied, watching his orbs spin. He had them change color – blue, gold, purple, white, and back again. “And yes, I am rather enjoying myself.”

Genji laughed quietly, and Zenyatta looked over to find his student watching the spinning orbs, mesmerized. They sat there for several minutes, watching the orbs spin and change color, seemingly at will.

“How do they work?” the cyborg asked, leaning back on his hands, and stretching out his artificial legs in the grass.

“I suppose I have not told you much about them, have I?”

“I only know what is apparent.”

“Which is?”

“They hurt when you throw them at me.”

Zenyatta laughed, and his orbs chimed in unison. “Then, if you wish, I will enlighten you.”

Genji nodded and spread his hands, urging the omnic to continue.

Zenyatta called the three spinning orbs in the sky to come back to sit around his neck, and beckoned a different orb to sit in front of himself and his student on the grass. The blades stuck up around the edges of the metal orb, like trees against a golden sky, the blue rings outlining a sun, and the crevices of the designs like lightening form the clouds.

“Before I left the Shambali,” Zenyatta started, “I realized that self-defense was a necessity in order to keep myself and the other monks of the monastery safe. It –”

“That wasn’t a part of the temple already?” Genji interrupted. Zenyatta looked up from his orb to stare blankly at his student. “Sorry, Master,” the cyborg added, hastily.

The omnic’s irritated façade quickly faded. “I appreciate your desire for learning, my student, but you may find it easier to learn if you listen first, and see if your questions are not answered.”

Genji nodded, and Zenyatta refocused his attention to his story.

“To answer your question,” he continued, “Mondatta had never employed self-defense, and in fact, opposed the idea when I first presented it.”

He heard his student take a breath in as if to speak, but heard it cut off just as quickly. The omnic turned towards his student and the orbs around his neck chimed.

“You are learning,” the monk praised. “Well done, Genji.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“As for Mondatta’s opposition,” Zenyatta said, “I fought with him for weeks until, finally, I decided to learn how to defend myself, and my fellow Shambali, in secret. It did not take long for him to find out what I was doing, of course, but he could not have stopped me if he tried.”

“Did he try?” Genji prodded.

Zenyatta laughed heartily, taking in the memory. “Oh, he wanted to. I remembered him passing by the courtyard and seeing me practice – he could have brought the mountain down with the looks he would give me.”

Genji chuckled. He had not known Mondatta long before he and Zenyatta left the Shambali for good, but the leader of the monks was always hospitable, if a bit distant, toward the wayward cyborg. Zenyatta was almost sorry for leaving, and preventing him from becoming closer with Mondatta. He figured they would have gotten alone quite well. For the most part.

“Anyhow,” Zenyatta said, brushing the memories aside, “Mondatta could not stop me, so he seethed from afar. Insisted that I was provoking ‘needless violence’ and that I would be damaging the Omnic Rights movement exponentially. But,” he said, unabashedly preening, “he quickly changed his tune when I defended a small group of monks from a particularly violent hate group that attended one of our speeches, single-handedly, without a single life lost on either side.”

“You did _what?_ ” Genji asked, leaning forward with excitement.

Zenyatta gently rested a hand on Genji’s shoulder. “A story for another time. The part that is relevant to this conversation is that I made these weapons –” he indicated the orb on the ground with a hand, and it chimed “— when I first began to train myself. And what ultimately saved the lives of many.”

Genji looked at the orb with newfound reverence. “How did you make them?”

“The Shambali have many contacts all over the world,” he answered. “I simply called a few friends to get me what I needed.” He indicated the orb again, and it began to rise off the ground at his will, rotating in a lazy circle. “A combination of omnic technology, nanomachines, and biotic field technology reside within every one of them.”

Genji watched the spinning orb so intensely, Zenyatta almost laughed. “How did you build them all so perfectly?” he asked.

The omnic sighed, more for flavor, as he didn’t have lungs. “It was an extremely long process of trial and error.” He made the orb spin a little faster, and slow down again. “But in the end, I learned. I programmed them to my hard drive, so that I can control them at will. I carved them myself. And they respond to omnic energy.”

Genji looked away from the orb, and back to his master. “Omnic energy?”

Zenyatta gestured toward the orb, and it began to glow a bright blue. Without warning, the glow around the orb punched into the ground, leaving a perfectly round crater in the dirt. But the orb itself hadn’t moved at all.

“Wait,” Genji said. “How did you… But… _How_?”

“You did not think I was hitting you with the physical orb, did you?” Zenyatta teased. “That would damage them rather irreparably.”

“But I can reflect it!” the cyborg protested.

“It’s true, you can,” Zenyatta said. “The omnic energy that is produced from the nanomachines are quite physical.”

“That doesn’t make _any_ sense. Energy isn’t _physical_ , you can’t _see_ it.”

Zenyatta held up a finger, and the orb started spinning again. “ _Normal_ energy isn’t. _Omnic_ energy is something different entirely. It’s a phenomenon to most, but some speculate it to be a mixture of kinetic and electrical energy.”

“How is it a phenomenon? Don’t _you_ know what you’re doing?”

Zenyatta shrugged. “There are some things that I lack answers for, even about myself. I know that if I concentrate, I can create a physical force.”

“That’s impossible. That can’t be right.”

Zenyatta tilted his head. “You can summon a dragon from your blade, can you not?”

“Yes, it’s been in my family for centuries.”

“Dragons do not exist, Genji. Tell me how you are able to summon it.”

“I can summon it because I –” the cyborg started, and then fell short. “I don’t know.”

Zenyatta spread his hands on his lap. “Thus, you have demonstrated that you, too, possess a physical phenomenon that cannot be explained.”

“I understand, Master. I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“It’s quite alright – I would have been skeptical in your position as well. Always ask questions, my student.”

The cyborg nodded, and pointed to the slowly spinning orb again. “You said it has biotic field technology. What else can it do?”

Zenyatta clasped his hands together. “Exactly what you’d expect a biotic field to do. It heals. But it can also harm.”

The omnic waved his hands around the orb, spinning it, and it radiated a deep, sinister, purple light. The grass around it began to dry out, wildflowers wilted, and even the bright afternoon sun seemed to darken. But he spun the orb again, the opposite direction, and it shined bright yellow. The grass and flowers sprung back to life. A bird flew down from a tree, landing on the glowing ball. It pecked the metal once, and flew away. Zenyatta laughed softly, and spun the orb back to dormancy.

“Can biotic fields do that?” Genji asked, a bit of fear lacing his voice.

Zenyatta shook his head. “No, I assure you. That was a bit of experimenting on my end. It does not work at the molecular level, as a biotic field does, so it is not as effective at destruction as it is at healing. But reversing similar components of a biotic field’s polarity created some…interesting effects.”

Genji shivered.

“They _are_ for self-defense,” Zenyatta reminded him. “And I would never have created it if I did not have use for it.”

“I know,” Genji said. “It’s just…unsettling.”

The monk nodded gravely, looking at the small hole caused by his omnic energy. “Near-effortless destruction is never something to take lightly.”

“Is it effortless?”

“Almost. It does take a toll to be in such close proximity to this energy, even when dormant. But that is why I meditate, and find peace in the Iris.”

Genji’s tone grew worried. “Is it hurting you?”

Zenyatta reassured him with a gentle laugh and small pat on the knee. “No, my student, but I thank you for your concern. It _is_ somewhat mentally taxing, but I am in not great danger.” The omnic called the lone orb back to its rightful place around his neck, joining the circle of its siblings. “That is everything that they are capable of, aside from floating.”

“What about the chiming?”

The orbs rippled gold, hopping up and down and chiming a single note each. “ _That_ ,” Zenyatta said, “is a special secret of mine.”

“Oh, come on,” Genji complained. “You’ve told me everything else!”

Zenyatta looked up into the trees, the sun streaking through the leaves and dappling his faceplate with spots of sun and shadow. “Every flower must bud before it can bloom, my student.” With that, the omnic stood, and brushed off his pants of dirt and grass. “Shall we continue on?”

Genji stood up as well. “Yes, Master.”

And the two outsiders, metal in a world of wood and stone and grass, continued on through the forest, swallowed up by the trees, leaving nothing but a small, rounded, crater in their place.

**Author's Note:**

> if you caught the dr who reference, you get a high five


End file.
